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Custom vans got big enough by 1977 that Detroit got into the business of making crypto-custom passenger vans right at the factory. While plaid upholstery with sporty STX logos doesn’t quite measure up to a mural of Zeus hurling lightning bolts at an Aztec warrior on the Mars Base (with matching four-foot airbrushed bong in a special bracket next to the driver’s seat), The General still moved a fair number of STXs during the Middle Malaise Era.
My parents had a close cousin of this van when I was a kid, and I spent many hours squabbling with my sisters in GM passenger-van bench seats just like these. I wonder how they’d look in my ’66 Dodge.
Loaded! Heavy-duty shocks and springs, 350 engine, “Buckskin” cloth interior, 3.40 gears, and an AM pushbutton radio. The one-ton Rally STX (the trim level above both the VanDura and Rally vans) retailed at $5,871, versus $4,496 for the one-ton VanDura. Adjusted for inflation, that’s about 22 grand for the STX. The current GMC Savana starts at $28K, which means Malaise van buyers got out of the showroom with more of their rapidly depreciating dollars still in their wallets.